Home Networking Reviews

For better or for worse, we've been through a whole lot of routers and wireless adapters, as well as our fair share of Powerline-based products as well. Generally speaking, we find networking products to have some of the shortest lifespans of anything on our network, not all that surprising given that they are "always-on" devices. While we can't publish reviews of everything we've tested, we'll try to highlight some of the best products we've come across, as well as trends in the industry.

At this point, 802.11ac networking is the standard that all devices are incorporating, with 802.11n as a fallback in many cases. Only time will tell whether a new standard will eventually take over, but 802.11ac has a long way to go, as most devices are using only a fraction of its capacity. While we've reviewed a number of 802.11n and mainstream 802.11ac devices, going forward we'll just be focusing on high-performance or novel applications of 802.11ac networking, or whatever comes after it!

In our latest networking review, we check out TP-Link's Archer C5400 router, newly enhanced with the HomeCare suite, and find that it has a whole lot going for it in terms of both performance and features!